Marquette Student Government elections Thursday saw 15 senate seats filled, with 1,472 votes cast representing 18.2 percent of the eligible student body. Turnout was down from 22.1 percent last year, but up from 14.6 percent in 2011. All open seats were for residency positions.
Two races ran uncontested. Julia Markun, a sophomore in the College of Communication, will be the new Carpenter Tower senator, after receiving 74 votes in an uncontested race. Murphy Quill, a freshman in the College of Business Administration, will be the new McCormick Hall senator after receiving 261 votes in the other uncontested race. An open seat remains for McCormick Hall, which will be appointed by the McCormick Hall Council in accordance with the MUSG Constitution.
The two Schroeder Hall Senators will be Kate Nichting, a sophomore in the College of Business Administration, and Matthew Walker, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. Walker previously served as Senator from Abbotsford Hall.
Abbotsford , Cobeen and Mashuda halls each only have one senator. The Abbotsford Hall Senator will be Cormac Brown, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, who defeated two opponents by grabbing 46.6 percent of the vote. The Cobeen Hall Senator will be Hannah Bobrytzke, a freshman in the College of Education, who won with 55.6 percent of the vote. David Rynerson, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, will be the Mashuda Hall Senator after raking in 62 percent of the vote.
One commuter senate seat is still being contested. Mogen Frenkel, a freshman in the College of Health Sciences, and Aliya Manjee, a freshman in the college of Arts & Sciences, each received 21 votes. Their election will be determined by a vote of the MUSG Senate at its meeting on Sept. 26.
The seven off-campus seats were filled in a nine-way race that saw 308 votes cast. Lukas Baker, a sophomore in the College of Communication, received 34.1 percent of the vote. Nathan Craft, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, received 32.5 percent of the vote. Natasha Hansen, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, received 37 percent of the vote. Alison Libera, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, received 39 percent of the vote. Mary McCarthy, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, received 37.7 percent of the vote. Brittany Riesenbeck, a senior in the College of Business Administration, received 48.4 percent of the vote. Thomas Schick, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, received 50 percent of the vote.
This is the first time since 2009 that all the off campus senate seats have been filled during the election, according to Jon Dooley, the senior associate dean of student development and adviser to MUSG. In that election, write-in ballots were accepted and seats were filled with a single vote.
No candidates ran for senate from McCabe Hall or Straz Tower. Those two seats will be filled by each hall’s respective hall council, in accordance with the MUSG Constitution.
